


A Pirate's Life

by KevlarMasquerade (nightsstarr)



Category: DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Pirate AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-07
Updated: 2014-02-07
Packaged: 2018-11-30 11:51:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11463009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightsstarr/pseuds/KevlarMasquerade
Summary: Jason Todd offers the young Tim Drake a new life aboard a ship captained by Bruce Wayne. He'd make a fine living as one of the more honorable pirates on the Atlantic. There just happens to be a gang of less honorable pirates about.





	A Pirate's Life

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to bubbleztehpwn on tumblr for requesting a TimSteph pirate AU

Tim stared wide-eyed at the teenager in front of him, a mask pulled over her mouth and nose but her eyes startlingly clear and fixed on him.

When his mother was killed by a pirate raid and his father turned to the local pub for comfort instead of to his son, the last thing Tim Drake ever expected was to get caught up in piracy, himself.

He met Jason Todd, a member of a smaller pirate band, at the pub one night when he went to retrieve his father. He knew Todd was a pirate, from the lopsided smile and the salt-beaten look on his skin and the jewelry on his fingers, expensive pieces worn by a man who didn’t know how to handle them. Pirates frequented the pub of their port town often, usually without causing trouble, but Tim was wary around them all the same.

Todd followed him out of the pub and lifted his limp father on his shoulder.

“Want some help there, kid?” he’d asked, already supporting Jackson Drake’s weight and moving in the direction Tim had been heading.

Protesting hadn’t worked, and he’d been forced to accept the help he didn’t want.

“This ain’t a life for a kid,” Todd had remarked. “I can give you another chance. A new family.”

Of course, Tim wasn’t about to run off with strange late-teenage pirates, so Todd pressed a gold medallion into his hand.

“That’s insurance. We come by this way every few months. I’ll be seeing you next time around to get that back. Think about it.”

Tim took to wearing the medallion, Todd’s offer ringing in his ears on bad nights, when his father was at his worst. The next time he saw Todd, months older but with the same lopsided smile and this time accompanied by a shipmate, Dick Grayson, Tim made his choice.

Grayson saw the welt on Tim’s cheek and didn’t ask where it came from. Tim boarded the ship with the young men and didn’t look back.

It had been a few months, enough time for Tim—more often referred to as Drake by the shipmates he now considered his brothers—to get over his seasickness and learn swordfighting techniques from Captain Bruce Wayne. But it wasn’t enough time for him to learn how to beat someone.

His sword was laying on the floor, his hand cut shallowly by the blade of the girl-pirate in front of him.

She’d boarded their ship, along with the rest of their crew, headed by Captain Selina Kyle.

Tim had been cornered in his bunk, and he could hear the scrabbling of men above him, the distinctive thunk of Barbara Gordon’s wooden leg with every other step.

“You’re new on this ship, aren’t you?” the blonde girl asked, sword pointed at his stomach but held still.

“I—” Tim stammered. It wasn’t a question he’d been prepared to hear.

“You’re pretty easy on the eyes,” she giggled, and from the crinkle of her eyes she was smiling.

Tim felt his face heat up, but he did the only thing he could do—trained his face into a defiant expression. Maybe it was Todd rubbing off on him, but he thought that if he was going to get stabbed, he’d have as much of his dignity intact as he could muster.

The point of her sword brushed the loose material of his shirt as she leaned close to him, taking the gold medallion he still wore in one hand, surprisingly delicate and feminine-looking despite the callouses on her fingers. She brought the sword off and cut the silk fabric keeping it hanging around his neck, watching as it looked on her palm.

“Thanks. Drake, isn’t it?” He refused to answer, so she shrugged and pulled her mask down, revealing her face. Surprising him, she pressed her lips against his, a simple kiss that only ended when he shoved her back weakly.

“Sorry, by the way.” She pulled her mask up and tilted her hat, turning to leave with no explanation for her apology.

He made to swipe at the blonde braid peeking out from beneath her hat, but he found that his arms were heavy and his head was full of cotton.

As he watched her retreating, he raised his fingers to his lips, which were coated with some kind of sticky gloss. He pulled his shirt over the back of his hand and scrubbed at his mouth, but it was too late. Reeling, he fell against the side of the bunk, fighting the effects of whatever poison she’d used on him only enough to avoid hitting his head.

He woke up hours later to Grayson shaking him violently by the shoulders, his own lips stained with deep red.

“What was that?” Tim croaked, speaking through a thick fog as Grayson hauled him to his feet.

“That,” he answered in a voice equally as rough, “was the woman-pirate group known as the Birds of Prey.”


End file.
